Founded in 2021, Tech 4 Tracing (T4T) is a non-profit partnership working to apply new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), to arms and ammunition control.

T4T aims to augment the capabilities of national authorities involved in arms and ammunition identification, documentation and tracing globally, by creating automated tools to lower the costs and increase the safety of this work, increase the number of actors who could contribute to it, and empower authorities to disrupt weapons trafficking and misuse, bring perpetrators of armed violence to justice, and contribute to safer societies.

T4T’s current project work:

• incubate, test and deploy innovative technologies for capturing, cataloging, and comparing data on explosive ordnance, small arms and light weapons components and small-calibre ammunition;

• enhance the automated visual detection of munitions and ordnance detection using synthetic and real-world benchmark training techniques;

• stimulate productive engagement between the new technology and arms control sectors in pursuit of the implementation of global, regional and national arms control agreements;

• build partnerships with law enforcement, emergency and rapid response, peacekeeping and human rights investigation communities to improve their abilities to understand and address illicit arms weapons and ammunition; and

• ensure that new technology-based weapons data collection tools contribute to digital evidence repositories for legal accountability mechanisms.

More information about these initiatives can be found on this website or by contacting info@tech4tracing.org.

T4T is supported by the European Union and United Nations Trust Facility Supporting Cooperation on Arms Regulation (UNSCAR). 

T4T has also benefitted from support from the Permanent Missions of Belgium and Mexico to the United Nations, which co-sponsored our side event at the Eighth Biennial Meeting of States for the UN Programme of Action (2022), and from the Swiss EOD Centre for access to free from explosive (FFE) munition items.